


When A Landslide Brings Me Down

by asexualjuliet



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Nancy mourning Barb, Will Byers is a cutie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-29 02:49:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20955485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualjuliet/pseuds/asexualjuliet
Summary: Nancy’s got a crap-ton of homework due tomorrow, and she can’t focus.She pretends she doesn’t know why, pretends she’ll be better tomorrow, but normally, she’d be doing her homework with Barb, with the radio on her nightstand playing Fleetwood Mac.





	When A Landslide Brings Me Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broadway_hufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadway_hufflepuff/gifts).

> This one’s for broadway_hufflepuff, who was on a FaceTime call with me the entire time I was writing this fic. 
> 
> The idea for this came from a scene in my other fic, Love Yourself, that I meant to elaborate on and then didn’t. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Nancy’s got a crap-ton of homework due tomorrow, and she can’t focus. 

She pretends she doesn’t know why, pretends she’ll be better tomorrow, but normally, she’d be doing her homework with _ Barb_, with the radio on her nightstand playing Fleetwood Mac. 

She can still hear Barb’s pretty voice carrying across the room, hear herself singing slightly off-key. 

(She can’t listen to Fleetwood Mac anymore. Stevie Nicks starts singing and Nancy starts to feel queasy).

She turns the radio on and there’s a knock on her door. 

“Mike, go _ away_!”

“It’s not Mike,” a small voice says, and then adds, “Sorry, I’ll go.”

Nancy gets the door as Will’s turning away. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” he says, giving a little smile. 

“Is everything okay?” She asks, because it’s suddenly struck her that she’s never had a one-on-one conversation with her brother’s best friend. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he assures her, “I just—”

Nancy looks at him as he cuts himself off. 

“I saw her,” Will says quietly, not meeting Nancy’s gaze, and her heart skips a beat. 

“In the Upside Down,” he continues. “I—I tried to save her, but—” he stops. Pulls something out of the pocket of his sweatshirt. 

“I thought you might want these.”

A pair of glasses, coke-bottle thick. Nancy’s breath stops in her chest. 

It’s the pair of glasses Nancy used to steal and try on where they were in the seventh grade, wearing them until they gave her a headache. 

The pair of glasses that never managed to hide the sparkle in her best friend’s eye. 

They’re _ hers. _

Tears prick at her eyes and she wraps Will in a hug. “Thank you,” Nancy whispers. 

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s not your fault,” she points out, releasing him from her arms. 

He looks her in the eye. “That doesn’t mean I’m not still sorry.”

She wipes her eyes. “Thank you, Will,” she says again. 

“You’re welcome,” he responds with a smile. 

“Go have fun,” she says after a second, smiling back, and he does, going down the stairs two at a time. 

Nancy laughs. Goes back into her bedroom and sits at the mirror. With shaking hands, she puts on the glasses. 

They blur her vision just as much as they ever did, she can barely see the photo booth strip from the mall in eighth grade that’s been taped to her mirror ever since. 

Fleetwood Mac starts to play on the radio. 

Nancy’s chest goes tight. 

_ Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? _

_ Can the child within my heart rise above? _

_ Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? _

_ Can I handle the seasons of my life? _

“I’m sorry, Barbie,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> All mistakes are my own, please let me know if you see any!
> 
> Kudos/Comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
